Conventionally, in postage meter technology, advertising slogans and/or inscriptions showing classes of postage and the like have been made available to customers as a printing die which has been insertable in a print drum or perhaps as a rotatable slug as shown, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,519,311 to Lowe.
Digital printing technology has made it possible to implement digital, i.e. bit map addressable, printing for the purpose of evidencing payment of postage by a postage-meter-like device. In addition to an indicia which is printed by postage meters, typically there may be printed an associated inscription as to the class of mailpiece, slogan or an additional message which is selected by the user to personalize the imprint.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,934,846 to Gilham discloses a slogan or the like being fed from the franking machine to a thermal printer. U.S. Pat. No. 4,831,554, assigned to the assignee of the instant application, shows a postage meter system for printing slogans or messages and for changing such slogans or messages by way of downloading by telephone from a database at a data center. While the latter patented invention may work well in most situations, there may be for some users insufficient flexibility for ease of use and range of creativity for the slogans, particularly in order to take advantage of current advertising trends or events. A problem arises, however, in allowing such flexibility since the all users may not be able to use all inscriptions and any slogan selected by the mailer must not, for example, be obscene and must meet other legal requirements for use on mailpieces.